


it's always ourselves we find in the sea

by XaviaAndromedovna



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bi!Derek, Death, Drowning, Love Spell, Mermaids, Monster of the Week, Multi, OOC because canon divergent, Pack Bonding, Post-3A, Sirens, Werewolf!Danny, bi!Lydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 01:49:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14486181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XaviaAndromedovna/pseuds/XaviaAndromedovna
Summary: Pack bonding trips always sound like a good idea until you're on one.





	1. down to the beach

**Author's Note:**

> So about five years ago I started this fic and never finished it and it's been taunting me in my drafts ever since so I finally finished it up and posted it. This fic blatantly ignores canon past 3A because I didn't feel like changing it, although to be fair I had planned on killing off this particular character before canon did. Anyway, unbetaed, not my finest work, I own nothing, etc.
> 
> Chapter and fic titles are from "maggie and milly and molly and may" by e.e. cummings AKA one of my favourite poems.

****

**Stiles**

Stiles parks the Jeep alongside the car Scott borrowed from his mom for the occasion. Today is Pack Beach Day, because the eight of them have a _long_ way to go in order to function as an actual, you know, pack. And because nothing says get along or die like mandatory pack bonding, Stiles advocated for a day to both de-stress and be in the same general area as each other without wanting to maim or torture each other.

Admittedly, this is a lot easier now that Derek Hale is out of the picture.

Stiles turns around to snap a picture of Danny and Ethan drooling on each other in the back seat because he’s an asshole and there’s nothing they can do about it asleep. Aiden rolls his eyes, but it’s not nearly as hostile as it could be, so Stiles assumes he’s just as amused.

He catches Aiden’s eyes and nods. The two take a deep breath and shout, “WE’RE HERE!!!”

Four orbs of gold snarl at the boys in the front seat. Stiles laughs and gets out of the Jeep, walking over to the other vehicle to get the supplies out of the trunk.

“Stiles, what exactly are we supposed to do with half of this stuff?” Lydia has the same look on her face as she did at her birthday party last year when he was trying to fit that ginormous box through her front door.

“Uh, do you see anything else for a few miles?” he counters. “You’ll be thanking me when your pretty little mouth is parched and I’m the only sustenance around.”

She rolls her eyes and takes out the giant bag of mountain ash.

“You know, in case there’s an emergency! You can never be too careful when you’re out with werewolves.”

She puts the ash down and picks up the volleyball net. “Do you even have poles for this?”

Oh. “Well, maybe we can find some lying around…? Okay, so I tend to over-prepare, are you really surprised?”

“I’m more surprised the one thing you forgot to bring was sunscreen, given how reflective you are in direct sunlight,” Isaac muses, Allison on his arm.

“Shit.”

After staking out a part of the beach with their blankets and cooler and beach umbrella which Stiles _totally brought for himself, Allison, but go right ahead and make out with Isaac under it_ , they more or less go their separate ways. Lydia strolls down the beach looking for seashells (“for science!” Stiles adds, which gets him a fond eyeroll), while the twins and Danny get straight to work on their tans. Stiles turns to his best friend with the childish smile they always shared. “Race you to the water?” Scott doesn’t even let him finish the question, just bolts for the ocean with an evil grin. He almost beats Stiles by a long shot, but Stiles has been practicing with Deaton ever since the Nemeton. He doesn’t know much, but the first thing he learned was protection spells, including temporary immobilization. He makes it to the water first proudly, Scott watching him with confused admiration.

The two swim for a bit, but a commotion back on the beach attracts Scott’s attention. Aiden and Isaac are fighting, again.

“Ah, crap,” Stiles mutters as he follows Scott back to their blanket archipelago.

“Break it up!” Scott barks.

“C’mon, guys! Can we please just pretend we like each other? Just for today?”

“Stay out of this,” Aiden growls through extended teeth.

“Don’t talk to Stiles like that,” Isaac tosses in, drawing Aiden’s attention back to the quarrel at hand. At least over the course of their junior year Stiles has finally been able to see Isaac as more than just a scary friend-stealer with understandable claustrophobia, and Isaac has gotten to know him in return.

“I’ll talk to Stiles any way I want!” He shoves Isaac directly into Stiles, who _of course_ lands ass-first on his new phone.

Scott roars as Stiles lets out a groan and a, “seriously dude?!”, which causes Isaac to cower instinctively and Aiden to roar back before storming off down the beach.

“What the hell was that?”

Isaac shrugs. “It’s gonna take more than a day at the beach for us to like each other.”

Aiden doesn’t return for a while, but someone else does about an hour and a half later. Someone they weren’t quite sure they’d see again. Stiles is the first one to notice him approaching, equal parts excitement and terror vibrating the teen’s bones.

“Derek?”


	2. so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles

****

**Lydia**

Mollusk, brachiopod, mollusk, mollusk, _ooh_ an urchin test! Lydia’s bags of shells— carefully organized by class— are full of many choice specimens for her experiment. Biology’s never really been her favorite, but she and Stiles have been a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the pack’s magic needs, and a lot of it is biology. And if anyone is equipped to adapt and thrive, it’s Lydia.

In a moment of indulgent abstraction, she holds one of the conches to her ear. She knows it’s not actually the ocean she hears— just ambient sound resonating in the shell cavity and the rush of her own blood— and it isn’t until she hears something unexpected that she realizes she’s in one of her trances.

She hears singing.

Normally, she’d be wary about following the sound, but she’s been training just like the rest of the pack, and this isn’t like her normal trances. _Something_ supernatural is happening; she just isn’t sure what. It probably isn’t the safest for her to be on such a jagged rock formation in such a revealing bikini, but she follows the music to its source.

The girl has pin-straight, platinum blonde hair cascading down her sun-kissed skin. Piercing turquoise eyes catch the sunlight above angular cheekbones. Her lips are slick and pink as they move to release a smooth, lilting voice made of the most gorgeous sounds. Her naked breasts are as proudly displayed as her shimmering violet tail, flipping absently in the water beneath her. In summary: Lydia finds her unbearably alluring.

“So mermaids _are_ real,” she hails, expecting the strange creature to startle or swim away, but the maiden simply stops singing and smiles.

“I could say the same about banshees.”

Lydia smiles before sitting on the edge next to her and flipping her hair dramatically behind her. “Do banshees have a specific look?”

“Is hot a specific look?”

It isn’t often that Lydia blushes, so she tries to cover it up by ignoring the fact anything scandalous had ever been said. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

The mermaid shrugs. “All two of the banshees I’ve ever met have looked like you. There’s probably a genetic component to it, but from what I’ve gathered it’s certainly not a dominant trait and it needs a supernatural catalyst. I’m Marina, head researcher of the Farallon School.”

Lydia blinks, then feels her lips curl into a seductive grin. “I’m Lydia Martin, your new best friend.”

She and Marina spend the rest of the afternoon comparing notes and asking questions about each other’s cultures. After a while, Marina’s tail dries out and her legs appear, just as smooth and enticing as the rest of her. Lydia tries very hard not to stare at the very naked girl next to her, but luckily Marina figures it out and pulls a bag of human clothes out of the water with a knowing leer.

Of all the ways to figure out she’s attracted to girls, making out with a mermaid is an extremely satisfying one, and while she has some questions to ponder later, right now she’s a little distracted.

Naturally, that’s when the pack shows up.


	3. befriended a stranded star

****

**Derek**

“Derek?” Six pairs of incredulous, hopeful eyes lock onto him, shaded in anxiety for whatever tragedy he was sure to have brought with him. But there is no tragedy (for once), and only one pair of eyes holds his attention. He marches hungrily up to Stiles, and before the boy has even a chance of reacting, brings his lips into his own. He may also accidentally lift him clear off the ground in his excitement.

When he sets Stiles back down and disconnects their faces, the look of mortification and confusion— and more than a hint of anger— on Stiles’ face sends Derek’s hope crashing back down. He realizes instantly that he has made a tremendous mistake.

“What the hell was that?”

That’s the problem; Derek has _no idea_. “I… sorry.” The mood around them shifts to grave concern. Derek Hale does not say ‘sorry.’ “I don’t know why I did that.”

“You have no idea why you just fucking manhandled me like a Hollywood starlet? What the fuck?!” Derek doesn’t even bother answering. He turns and walks back to his car. It’s a good thing him and Cora are only holed up a couple hours away, because he needs to find a safe place as soon as possible where he can hide and heal.

“Hey! DEREK!” Stiles catches up to him and tries— ineffectively— to push Derek to get his attention. Derek turns around and gives Stiles his signature scowl. _Hell_ no, they are not talking about this.

Of course, Stiles can read Derek’s silences like a second language. “Don’t give me that, we are absolutely talking about this.”

Resigned, Derek schools his face into a neutral expression and waits for Stiles to begin talking.

“We haven’t seen you in months, after you left without so much as a goddamn goodbye, then you just show up and expect me to what, be your random make-out buddy? Which, by the way, I thought you were straight.”

“I thought you _weren’t_.”

Stiles sputters in the indignant manner he’s perfected. “Why the hell would you think I was—“ Derek can see the internal mechanisms processing every odd question, every slashy scenario, every unintentional cue. “Oh.” Derek raises his eyebrows, knowing Stiles’ll translate. Amused vindication is kind of a standard one with them. “Dude, I was kidding, I don’t _actually_ care if guys find me attractive because I’m not interested.”

“Then why ask?”

“It’s a joke!”

Derek glares at him. “That’s kind of homophobic, don’t you think?”

“How is that— ugh, that’s not the point! Since when do you want me to have your werepuppies?”

“What?” Derek wishes there were a lie detection mechanism for facial expressions, because he’s pretty sure Stiles is feigning ignorance of why exactly Derek dropped everything to be with him.

“Look, obviously I was wrong. I misinterpreted your call and thought… I don’t know what I thought. Can I go now?”

“Dude,” Stiles says slowly, “I never called you.” Derek huffs. Wait a minute, Stiles isn’t lying. He takes out his phone and shows Stiles the call log.

“I’m in your phone as IGNORE?” Derek smirks internally, but says nothing. Stiles pulls out his own phone.

“Well I’ll be damned, I did call you. Huh. I must have butt-dialed you.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Whatever, Stiles. I know what I heard.” He turns to go. The sinking feeling that’s been going non-stop in his chest is getting a little too hard to bear.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“Why do you care?”

Stiles says ‘unbelievable’ with every part of his spastic body but his words. “Dude, we’re still friends. Alright, just because I don’t wanna be your underage gay boyfriend doesn’t mean you have to go brood or whatever.” The last thing he wants right now is to spend one more uncomfortable minute with Stiles. Now that he knows that this was all a misunderstanding (and that Stiles is kind of a douchebag), he mostly just feels embarrassed, and a little bit confused about how he got in this situation. In fact, he’s not quite sure when he started thinking Stiles was a viable option in the first place. Before Stiles called him, he’d never even considered the possibility. Derek’s bisexuality was more theoretical; he’s never been attracted to a specific guy before, and Stiles is so far off-limits regardless of his own feelings towards Derek that it actually doesn’t make sense for him to have done what he did.

He must have been lost in thought for a long time, because Stiles offers a tentative, “Derek, don’t worry about it. We’re good. Just come hang out with us. I’ll deal with everyone else.” Derek doesn’t budge; there’s something he needs to figure out first. “C’mon,” Stiles needles, back to his characteristic playfulness, “the sea is calling!”

That’s it. The final piece.

“I know what happened,” Derek says in a rush as he takes off for the rest of the pack. He needs to warn the others.


	4. a terrible thing which raced sideways

****

**Scott**

“There’s a siren.” Derek is walking briskly towards the pack, Stiles jogging frantically behind him. Scott strains to hear what Derek means.

“I don’t hear anything,” concurs Ethan.

Derek rolls his eyes. “As in the _creature_. Stiles butt-dialed me and the siren’s call came through the phone. Is everyone accounted for?”

Scott takes a quick look around. “All except Lydia and Aiden.”

“I saw Lydia further down the beach a few minutes ago.” Isaac points to a rock far off where she can be seen giggling with another form. “She’s been with some mystery girl for as long as we’ve been here.” Derek takes off towards her, Scott by his side. The pack more or less follows them at their own pace.

“Derek,” Scott warns, “we don’t know it’s her. Let me take the lead.”

Derek snorts. “Do you even know what a siren does?”

“It lures you in with its voice and kills you.” Derek raises his eyebrows. Scott grins, having impressed the McKayla Maroney of werewolves. “Trust me, we’ve been handling things just fine since you left. I’ll take care of it.”

The scowl that Derek gives him is relatively mild, so Scott counts it a victory. The two reach Lydia and the girl, both of whom greet them with complacent smiles. Lydia’s smile falls when she sees the wolves’ faces.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hi, I’m Scott.” He extends his hand to the wary friend. “This is Derek.”

“I’m Marina.” Derek glares at her when she goes to shake his as well. As soon as she retracts her hand, Derek lunges and pushes her into the water.

“DEREK!” Scott roars. So much for letting him take the lead. Although the way the beta flinches when Scott flashes red is progress. The pack has arrived, and everyone looks into the water in shock at Marina.

Who just grew a tail.

“What the hell, Derek?!” An angry Lydia is never something to trifle with, but Derek points to Marina and says, “you’re welcome”. Lydia turns to see what the rest see, then turns back to face him. “Yes, she’s a mermaid. Congratulations. Now can you stop outing mystical creatures you don’t know and get off my rock?”

Everyone looks at her with mild confusion. “You knew?”

“Of course I knew, she’s a mermaid at the _beach_. Why do you think we get along?”

“Because she’s seducing you.”

Lydia smirks at that. “Precisely. Now if you’ll excuse us…”

“Lydia,” Scott interjects, “she’s a siren.”

Attention snaps back to Marina, who has flopped onto the rock and begun drying off. “No I’m not.”

Derek snarls, but Scott shuts that down quickly. “Derek, back off.” The older man glares but complies. Scott huffs out in relief before continuing. “Marina, we aren’t going to hurt you unless you give us reason.”

“Which she hasn’t. You both need to back off.”

“Maybe not yet, but we have reason to believe she’s the siren who brought Derek here.” Lydia raises her eyebrow at the implication, looking at the embarrassment Stiles tries to hide and the uncomfortable grimace Derek sports and putting two and two together.

Marina laughs. “Do I look like a siren?”

“Yes,” several people chime in. The mermaid rolls her eyes.

“God, you land-dwellers are so dense sometimes. Mermaids and sirens are two different species. Mermaids have tails, like me.” She flips hers to emphasize the point. “Sirens are actually closer to harpies, half-woman, half-bird. Over the years, artists associated them with the sea so prominently they forgot the original descriptions. It’s actually kinda speciesist.”

“Happy?” Lydia commands, “now kindly leave us the fuck alone.” She sits down next to Marina and pulls her into a hug, whispering apologies into her hair.

“We’re sorry, Marina,” Scott says with a pointed look at Derek. “We’ll leave you two—“

Lydia screams. Not her human scream, but her banshee scream. Death is coming.

They’ve practiced this. The pack goes on high alert as Scott crouches down next to Lydia.

“Lydia, who is it?”

“It’s Aiden.”

A piercing screech blankets the beach as shimmering wings come into view. The siren flies over their heads, carrying the last member of their pack to its cave on the other side of the beach.


	5. as large as alone

****

**Aiden**

After his fight with Isaac, Ethan tried to calm him down but all Aiden wanted was to be left alone. He doesn’t even remember what it was about, just that he’s tired of Isaac looking down on them like they’re not worthy of Scott’s presence. Whatever, fuck him.

He is a long way down the beach when he finally sits at the edge of the water and lets it wash over him. While he’s definitely used to being constantly surrounded by his twin, the size of Scott’s pack and the range of personalities within it are sometimes too much for Aiden to deal with. It’s not often he gets to sit by himself and reflect.

At some point, he hears Lydia’s voice in the distance, calling his name. His time with Lydia was good, but she had made it very clear they weren’t hooking up again. Which was fine, what they had was just casual. Totally…fine.

As the voice gets closer, he figures he should save her the trouble of walking all that way and heads in her direction. After a minute or so, her voice is louder but she’s nowhere in sight. He is slightly worried by that, but it’s not important. He’ll get to her.

By the time he wakes from his stupor and realizes Lydia is not anywhere near him, talons are gripping his shoulders and hauling him through the air. He looks up to see some sort of winged creature, one he can’t fight from this angle. How did it get the drop on him so easily? He remembers the daze he was in as he followed Lydia’s voice and realizes this creature lured him into its trap. Probably a siren. Great.

They approach a cave in a completely different part of the coastline with water lapping at the entrance. He lands roughly on a jagged rock further in as the siren perches on a tree outside. He catches his breath and gets up for a fight, claws out and snarling.

“A werewolf,” the siren notes with surprise. “Haven’t had one of those in a while.”

“Fuck you.”

“Usually a fall from that height would be enough to kill a person, but given the circumstances, I guess I’ll need to get creative. Werewolves still aren’t the best swimmers, correct?”

“Let’s test that theory,” he retorts as he makes a break for the water. The siren lets out a call that stops him in his tracks.

“This cave has delightful acoustics. Makes things resonate way stronger than I can manage on my own. Another thing in its favor is that it’s completely submerged at high tide. So why don’t you sit down like a good boy and wait.”

Aiden sits down in the water and listens to the caressing music around him, Lydia’s soothing voice accompanied by strange refrains. He doesn’t understand it, but something about hearing Lydia talk, even about the science of the tide or what fundamental frequencies are, is captivating. He could listen to her for hours. So he does.

She sounds even more beautiful underwater. At some point he forgets to breathe, but he doesn’t need to. She’s taken his breath away.


	6. For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)

****

**Ethan**

The cave takes significantly longer to reach without wings, and the closer they get the more Ethan is worried about what he’ll find. He still feels his bond with his brother settled deep within him, which is the only thing keeping him focused right now.

The wolves sprinted off after Aiden and the siren while Allison, Lydia, and Stiles made preparations back at the beach for medical attention or a fight or both. Ethan, led by the faintest of scents and sheer force of will, becomes the de facto navigator; the others know to trust their bond. He tries not to think about how upset Aiden was when they last saw each other, tries not to beat himself up for leaving him alone, tries to forget that his last words to him might be “fine, enjoy your sulk, dickhead”. It’s not very effective.

The closer they get to the cave, the harder it gets for Ethan to breathe. He feels like he’s drowning, like he his lungs are struggling to keep up with the pace he’s setting. He stops to cough and waves the others on. There’s no time for them to worry about him, a point he tries to growl out but another cough interrupts it. The others take off again, him following behind at a glacial pace.

When he feels his brother die, his lungs finally open up and it rips a howl out of him. He barely registers the howls in return from the rest of the pack and the scream of a banshee, swept up by the grief and pain of losing his brother, his pack mate, his literal other half. While his steps come more quickly, he does not run, for there is no need. Getting there faster won’t bring him back.

Scott deposits Aiden’s body at Ethan’s feet and stands across from him, head hung low. Ethan stoops down, picks up Aiden’s body, and starts walking back. The others follow silently. When they arrive twenty minutes later, he puts the body in the back of the Jeep and lies down in the backseat. After some time, Stiles and Danny get in the front and begin to drive off.

Stiles coughs. “Where would you like us to take him?”

Ethan doesn’t respond. He doesn’t know what to do next. He doesn’t even know where to begin thinking about it.

“I saw Derek do a werewolf burial once,” continues Stiles. “His land seems like the best option.”

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye.” Danny extends his hand and Ethan takes it absently. “It feels like half my body is just gone…”

“The siren is dead,” Danny says eventually. “I know it doesn’t bring him back, but at least it can’t cause any more harm.”

He mutters a “thanks” and remains silent for the rest of the drive to Derek’s old house. He’s not sure how long he sits on the porch, staring at Aiden’s body, but at some point the others gathered the elements they needed for the burial. He does as Derek instructs and when Aiden is in the ground Ethan sits down next to the flower above his body and speaks.

“I know you didn’t all know him very well, or even like him.” He pointedly does not look at Isaac. “And he wasn’t always the nicest guy. But he was always there for me when I needed him, always looking out for me and saving my ass more times than I can count. He was always the funnier one; when we were with our original pack, he would cheer me up and talk about how things wouldn’t always be like that. And when we joined the alpha pack, he got colder, crueler, but he was till the person I trusted the most. We were… we were finally starting to heal from all the shit that’s happened to us, because you all took us in, and now he’s gone and I don’t…”

Scott puts his hand on Ethan’s shoulder and Ethan settles into the touch. He howls, the pack echoing him, and stands up. “I’m going for a run. Thanks for… being here I guess.” He takes off into the night and lets the forest rush past him.

When he runs, he feels nothing but the exertion of his body and the wind whipping past him. He can forget that there’s no one to run with him, no one to tell him it’ll all be okay. He runs faster.

When his body is about to give out, he heads to the place he and Aiden have been staying, where Danny is waiting for him.

“Hey,” Ethan says, voice as tired as the rest of him.

“You’re not gonna stay, are you…”

“I honestly don’t know. I don’t really wanna stay, but I wouldn’t know where to go.”

“Well, if you decide to stay, we’re here for you. You’re one of us now.”

Ethan smiles weakly and pulls Danny to the bed. Danny settles in behind him and they sleep off the pain of the day as best they can.

~~~

If you’d said a year ago that he would still be with Danny and still in Beacon Hills after all this time, Ethan wouldn’t have believed it. Yet as he sits with his boyfriend and watches their pack around them, he realizes how glad he is that he stayed. Marina is perched in Lydia’s lap in the corner, giggling and whispering into the banshee’s ear. Scott, Allison, and Isaac are doing their annoyingly cute throuple thing in the kitchen, and Jackson, just returned from London a couple months ago, is flirting way too hard with Derek, who seems more receptive than he’d probably like to let on. Stiles is fighting with the TV and eventually lets out a cry of success when he gets it to work. There’s still a hole where Aiden used to be, but it’s become more of a dull ache over time, and as he settles in to watch whatever ridiculous film Stiles has chosen, he smiles as he looks around at the family he still has left. It’s better than nothing.


End file.
